Community Corner
Using Mediation to Resolve Your Real Estate Disputes
Did you know that Mediation is a faster and more cost-efficient alternative to resolve your Real Estate Disputes?
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What is Real Estate Mediation?
Real estate mediation is a process where disputing parties come together with an impartial mediator to sort out a dispute and reach an agreement. Mediation may be used for a wide variety of real estate issues. Depending on circumstances, mediating parties may include buyers, sellers, investors, lenders, owners, and tenants each of whom may have a substantial stake in the outcome. It is usually important for real estate disputes to be resolved quickly because the financial model of real estate is sensitive to interruptions. Mediation is a relatively fast process that could resolve disputes in significantly less time than a lawsuit. Real estate disputes voluntarily submitted to mediation have a reasonable success rate.
Examples of Real Estate Disputes
Common real estate disputes include contract and title issues, construction problems, blocked views, zoning issues, casualty losses, insurance coverage, and responsibility for repairs. For example, an investor buys a house with the intent to renovate in anticipation of increasing its value by 50%. During construction, an overgrown tree from a neighboring plot falls on the house. Determining fault and responsibility for repairs between the investor and the neighbor could be settled through mediation.
Benefits of Mediation
Mediation is a very cost-effective way to settle disputes. There is no requirement for an attorney to be present even though it may help with mediation. Litigation is much more expensive than mediation because the whole process is more involved: court proceedings must be held, a case presented, witnesses and evidence offered, and additional procedural steps may be taken by advocates. Since the pandemic, mediations have been held online more often, making it even less expensive and less time consuming.
Compared to litigation, which can span several months to many years, mediation can resolve real estate matters quickly, at a lower cost, and in a less contentious manner. A longer timeframe could delay construction or repairs and impact potential income and property use.
Mediation allows each party to determine what they want from the mediation to achieve a satisfactory outcome. The mediator guides the parties to a compromise. Both sides negotiate until both are satisfied with the result. In a lawsuit, it is uncommon that, both sides can be satisfied. One side could win and the other could lose and walk away with nothing.
Mediation allows for relationships to stay intact by providing a comfortable environment for parties to pursue their interests in a non-combative manner. In court, a judge will resolve the dispute based on legal terms and may not take either personal feelings or ongoing relationships into consideration. Mediation also preserves the possibility that the parties can continue and benefit from a business relationship.
NJAPM is a non-profit professional organization dedicated to fostering excellence in the field of mediation, promoting mediation by trained and accredited mediators as the preferred method of conflict resolution and providing mediation education to the public, the government and the professions.
Our NJAPM professionals have experience in the types of cases below and more!
- Title Defects, Liens, and other Conveyancing Issues
- Property Valuation Disputes
- Toxic Waste or other Environmental Disputes
- Undisclosed Property Defects
- Broker Commission or Short Sale Negotiation Disputes
- Transactional or Escrow Disputes
- Tax Structuring, Foreclosure, or Bankruptcy
- Loan Modifications and Refinancing Disputes
- Breach of Contract
- Subleasing, Wrongful Eviction, Legality of Rental Unit Disputes
- Property Rights and Deed Restrictions
- Mineral Rights, Land Use and Zoning Disputes
For more information about the basics of mediation, please access: https://njapm.org/page/business-commercial-and-general-civil-mediation.
To find a mediator near you, please check: https://njapm.org/search/custom.asp?id=6816.
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